Description
Deemed by the author to be the greatest maritime disaster on record (to that time), this is the story of the Sultana, and her loss with so many soldiers, on April 27, 1865, just days after the assassination of President Lincoln, and although not known yet, about a week after the end of the American Civil War. The loss of the steamer Sultana and over 1,700 passengers, mostly exchanged prisoners of war, finds but a small footnote in American history. The idea that the most appalling marine disaster that ever occurred in the history of the world should pass by unnoticed is strange, but still such is the fact, and the majority of the American people today do not know that there ever was such a vessel as the Sultana. This little book is the culmination and compilation of stories by some of the survivors themselves. While some of the descriptions are short, there are a few which go into such vivid detail that the reader might actually think they are floating in the frigid, swollen Mississippi River alongside the survivor himself; each little story is itself a small tidbit of American civil war history that is possibly not previously understood. This book is a reprint of the original 1892 publication. Illustrated, indexed, 6×9, softcover. (291 pp; 9781935573814) $16.95